


Great Minds Think Alike

by Ultra



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Quantum Leap, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Artificial Intelligence, Attempt at Humor, Buddies, Crossover, Friendship, Gen, Hanging Out, Iron Man 2, Neural Handshake, Walk Into A Bar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-20
Updated: 2013-03-20
Packaged: 2018-08-08 04:35:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7743595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ultra/pseuds/Ultra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When neural links go askew, the darndest people can make friends! [Timeline: AU future QL/AU Iron Man 2]</p>
<p>(Originally for whiskyinmind, based on her prompt Tony & Al, AI or AL)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Great Minds Think Alike

It wasn’t so weird for Al to realise his wolf-whistle had an echo. The woman that just walked by was hotter than the 4th July sun! The real surprise came when the other guy doing the whistling turn to look right at him and then spoke.

“Really, grandpa?” asked the younger man, instantly recognisable as the guy running this whole expo, Mr Tony Stark himself. “I mean, a guy like me, I can pull it off, but you’re gonna give yourself a heart attack if you go after a girl like that.”

Al stood stock-still for a moment and just stared. Having his age and/or prowess with the ladies questioned didn’t thrill him, but right now he was more concerned by the fact he could be seen by someone who wasn’t Sam.

“Gooshie!” he said out of the corner of his mouth. “What the heck is going on?”

“Who are you...? Did you say Gooshie?” Tony checked with a frown. “You’re not talking about the guy that works at Project Quantum Leap are you? Because I didn’t know he was here...”

Al’s eyes were as wide as saucers at that comment, and at the sight of Stark now trying to look for Gooshie, who clearly he had heard of. That wasn’t so weird, perhaps. These science types tended to know each other either personally or by name and rep. Still, the observer wasn’t quite over the fact that this guy could see him.

“I tell you who I’d really like to meet - Sam Beckett,” said Tony with a shake of his head as he knocked back the contents of his glass. “I mean, I know, impossible, right? But that guy has a seriously big brain! We’re talking... well, he might even be as smart as me,” he shrugged, ever the narcissist, he called to the barman for another drink for himself and one for his new friend.

“I can’t have a drink,” said Al slowly. “I’m not here.”

“You’re not here,” Tony repeated, feeling for a moment like he'd turned over two pages at once. “Oh, you’re Admiral Calavicci!” he exclaimed all of a sudden, a grin on his face a mile wide. “The hologrammatic image of the observer. Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Al. Can I call you Al? Oh, of course I can, you’re not gonna mind that, it’s your name,” he answered his own question before the hologram had a chance to respond. “So, how is it that I can see you? I thought you and Beckett were, I don’t know, on some kind of neural link?” He made vague gestures between his head and Al’s own as he waited for the answer. “Maybe great minds just think alike?” he suggested. “Or is it something else?”

“I wish I knew,” Al shook his head, smacking the hand-link he held as it buzzed and whirred. “This never happened before, not with another adult human anyway.”

“Well, I am part mechanical these days,” said Tony, tapping a fist on the arc reactor in his chest. “And y’know, as Pepper would tell you, I’m not exactly well-evolved in the brain department. Childish a lot of the time, and spoiled apparently. She obviously doesn't understand what that word means.”

“What’s so great about being an adult all the time anyway?” Al shrugged his shoulders, pulling a cigar out of his pocket and lighting it up. “Like a grown person can’t enjoy themselves sometimes... and there’s plenty to enjoy in here,” he said with a wink as he looked towards another group of young ladies.

“You do know they’re looking at me, right?” said Tony out of the side of his mouth. “Nobody else can see you.”

“Believe me, kid, if I was really here, they’d be looking!” said Al definitely. “Ooh, that one actually reminds me a lot of my fifth wife... or was she my sixth wife?” he checked, looking thoughtful as he counted on his fingers.

“Six? Six wives?” asked Tony, with apparent shock.

“Well, I’m with number seven now,” Al explained. “Or is she number eight...?”

“Oh my God!” his new friend gasped. “You, sir, are my hero,” he said definitely reaching out as if to shake Al’s hand, though of course his own fingers passed straight through the hologram’s arm. “Yeah, that’s a weird sensation.”

“You’re telling me,” Al laughed around his cigar.

“Can I also say, wow! That jacket? Where did you get that? I want one. In fact I want several, in all the colours I can think of,” Tony enthused, much to Al’s further amusement, as he adjusted said jacket over his shoulders.

“I know a guy,” was all he would say about it, and then his attention was diverted by someone or something that Tony himself couldn’t see. “Gooshie? Yeah, I know that, but for whatever reason I can’t find Sam right now. Oh, that’s great! Well tell Ziggy we don’t have all night for her to figure this out!”.

“Sam Beckett is here?” asked Tony, looking left and right.

“He leapt in, as far as we know, but we can’t find the guy he leapt into,” Al sighed, running a hand over his face and smacking the handlink one more time for good measure. “Listen, Stark, maybe you could help me out. You know a guy named Hap... Happy Hog? Oh, Happy Hogan!” he exclaimed when he finally got the handlink to play ball.

“Happy? Sam leapt into Happy?” asked Tony, practically choking on his latest martini. “He’s a friend of mine, my bodyguard, or he was until I made Pepper the CEO and... I can get a hold of him for you. JARVIS!” he called overhead then, making Al jump.

“Yes, sir,” answered the cultured English voice of the A.I.

“I need you to find Happy and let me know where he is,” he told the disembodied voice.

“Very well, sir, won’t take a moment,” he replied succinctly.

“You got like a fancy British butler guy... in the ceiling?” asked Al with a frown.

“JARVIS is my artificial intelligence. He runs Stark Tower for me, helps out in the Iron Man suit,” Tony explained, waving his hand in a vague gesture. “Although, as sidekicks go, I gotta think you’d be a whole lot more fun, buddy,” he grinned at Al.

“Really, sir, you didn’t program me to be fun, or to leer at women on your behalf,” said JARVIS, before quickly following up with the information that had been requested of him. “Mr Hogan has just arrived outside, chauffeuring Miss Potts.”

“Okay, let’s go, Al,” said Tony as he finished up his drink and gestured for the other guy to follow.

“Y’know, actually, I got a faster way,” the older man smiled. “But thanks for the help, Mr Stark,” he added, before suddenly, with a blip of the handlink, he was gone.

“Huh,” said Tony, staring at the space in which his new friend had stood only moments before. “I wanna be able to do that!”


End file.
